Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Chick-fil-A has recently come across my newsfeeds even though it’s not too new that Chick-fil-A has been supporting things like Focus on the Family. The existence of this knowledge brings about a question. What is my relationship to the philanthropy of Chick-fil-A? One college voted to remove Chick-fil-A from the campus.

My gut reaction is that corporations should strive to be more value neutral. There are causes I believe in which might seem divisive or disagreeable to others. Specifically, I think evolution must be taught in schools and I think educating each other is the highest value. Educating people is a really touchy subject because what is important about education is different to different groups and none of us want to be brainwashed. I don’t want to learn about homeopathy; Liberty University wants people to learn fake science.(more…)

I want a country that you could leave freely but you don’t want to. I want a country that wants you in it so much that they take the time to find you and make sure you’ve got what you need. I want a country where the laws fall through the cracks so the citizens don’t.

I believe in the basic principle that a good nation builds good workers that make good products that everybody can be proud of. In return for investing in our young Americans, that nation then taxes you a bit to invest in the next set of young Americans and to care for the well being of those who have invested their twenties through sixties in the American Dream.(more…)

So the Ten Commandments went up in a school in Giles County, VA because the staff there are morons. Don’t worry, I intend to substantiate this proposition with some clever reasoning. Let us consider how the Ten Commandments would fare if they were offered up as laws given that we already have the First Amendment.(more…)

I feel better having gotten that off my chest. I don’t know if I hate other people because I don’t run into them that often and I’m an optimist. I’m not really being serious.

What I hate the most is typically coined faithheads, fundamentalists, and now tea partiers. I balance this against my value “it is important to allow people to hold views I would not hold.” I pretty much guarantee that this is a line that can’t coherently be navigated but it’s important to try.(more…)

I don’t expect everyone to know their history cover to cover. I do expect my wannabe politicians to know the history they speak about. Bachmann seems capable of neither. She’s basically just another one trick pony that thinks she can say whatever she wants and get votes for being on the right tea party team.

Don’t let that happen. Tea partiers, even you should care about electing your most informed candidates.

Driving down to a nice Skeptics picnic at a local winery in Amherst, VA, my girlfriend and I noticed a covered wagon making its slow trek to Washington, DC. I found an article about it in the Lynchburg news.

I’ve been busy so I don’t have time for essays. But, if you think being gay is a bad choice, you’ll never get my vote. You can have bad biology lessons and think it’s a choice that is morally neutral. You can favor straight or gay fashion. But if you think an action needs to be taken to shun, shame or fix people who would otherwise travel the paths of gayness, you get no vote.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a policy intended to provide a way for gay people to serve in the military in a fashion that would not cause them to choose between honesty and serving. Coming out as gay in the military normally ends a tour of duty as I understand it. Let’s ignore for the moment that not being able to openly say what you are is also dishonest, we can certainly agree it’s a different sort of dishonesty that is more passive.

In my view, there is another more pressing reason why the military has an onus to allow openly gay people. Furthermore, the principle I intend to illuminate can be reused for several forms of alternative lifestyles especially as those lifestyles become more culturally visible.(more…)

The world is a very diverse place in the market of beliefs. People have beliefs and then people have lack of belief. This is 101 for most atheists and agnostics. The “New Atheist” movement was definitely fascinating to see because I came from a place where having no belief was frowned upon. But it’s time to build a better lack of belief system.(more…)

I stopped by to a concert in Charlottesville’s renamed and probably reowned Gravity Lounge that now goes by the name The Southern. For $20 of my friend’s money, we were let into a late start by Taylor Carson.

Taylor Carson is a guitar playing singer/songwriter from Arlington, VA if I’m not mistaken and while he didn’t play poorly, he had a style that to me spoke more of untapped potential. My favorite on his set was “Who Am I” which isn’t available on his album. But I picked up his CD anyway and got it signed while taking a moment to converse with Taylor. That’s the best part of small venues.

Pat McGee was an unknown name to me but he’s a pretty confident singer/guitar player with a four person band. He casually let the audience shout out their favorite tracks and then played most of them, maybe all of them, but some he put off until later.

For an encore, he brought an acoustic guitar into the audience and played even more intimately surrounded. The keyboarder, whose name I should familiarize myself with, brought out his saxes and one of the two percussionists brought out a box for homemade but well timed beats.

My friend picked up his CD and got it signed. Pat McGee and Taylor Carson are scheduled to do the Rockin’ The Outerbanks gig sometime in May. They were a great show especially since I was expecting absolutely nothing when I walked in.